Steve Martin

Latest Articles

Review: The Big Year

The Big Year falls short
Dorky, obsessed with trivia, and badly dressed — birders get a bad rap.
By PETER KEOUGH | October 12, 2011

Steve Martin to give Portland the Bird

Steep and deep
Things that are important to understand going into Steve Martin's bluegrass performance, backed by the Steep Canyon Rangers, at Merrill Auditorium: 1) The music is dead serious. 2) So is the comedy.
By SAM PFEIFLE | May 12, 2011

King's folly

Balls, pucks, and monster trucks
If your name were King Bishop, you'd know how to play chess, right?
By RICK WORMWOOD | March 23, 2011

By | January 01, 0001

Interview: MST3K creator Joel Hodgson on Cinematic Titanic's art of bad film

Awful good
Hodgson has returned to live performance with Cinematic Titanic , a touring version of MST3K that keeps the riffing (but ditches the robots-in-space conceit). In advance of the Cinematic Titanic show at the Wilbur Theatre on Friday, he called to discuss his early influences, movie riffing, and why some films are too awful to mock.
By ROB TURBOVSKY | October 28, 2010

By | January 01, 0001

Oprah, red in tooth and claw

All God's creatures get nailed in Life
"Of the millions of known species of life on earth, more than 90 percent have no backbone." Well, that explains a few things.
By JAMES PARKER | June 16, 2010

Summer treats

Whether classical, jazz, pop, or folk, 'tis the season to get out and enjoy the music
From Andean to zydeco, pick your flavor and there's a summer music festival ready to serve it up.
By CLEA SIMON | June 18, 2010

White losers rejoice: Fletch celebrates 25 years

Thrill of the Chase Dept.
This holiday weekend marks the 25th anniversary of Fletch , the uneven but wildly enduring 1985 Chevy Chase comedy about a wisecracking reporter embroiled in a potboiler mystery.
By PETER HYMAN | June 03, 2010

Hot and bothered

2nd Story’s hilarious Underpants
Shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater and you get one response. Shout “Die Hose!” (women’s undies) in a German theater back in 1911 and you got another kind of uproar.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | May 12, 2010

Dane Cook is funny

In defense of the local comedian, who plays TD Garden on New Year's Eve
There are two things that non-comedians feel the need to tell me when discussing comedy. One is "Bob Saget is filthy." The other is "Dane Cook is not funny."
By STEVE MACONE | December 30, 2009

Review: It's Complicated

Indeed it is
It's complicated, and so are my feelings about Nancy Meyer's predictable and overlong boomer-bait rom-com.
By MIKE MILIARD | December 22, 2009

2009: The top 10 in pop music

Music you need to own
Hmm, lots of women, a few old dudes, and some African banjo (not to be confused with Steve Martin's Hollywood banjo).
By JIM MACNIE | December 22, 2009

Interview: Steve Martin, banjo extraordinaire

Just two wild and crazy guys
I remember watching Steve Martin’s Wild and Crazy Guy on a crinkly VHS tape, while sitting on my parent’s bedroom floor. I was just a little fat kid at the time. My parents were at work, as they often were, and my older sister, my only sibling, had just married her high school sweetheart and moved two miles away.
By CHRIS GARCIA | October 05, 2009

The Empire strikes back

AS220's loose and lively revue
The Empire Revue is a monthly event at AS220, happening every first Sunday at 8 pm, as predictably as political malfeasance and as reliably funny, only without the urge to strangle the perpetrators. It's only eight bucks, which is still cheaper than a movie, they like to remind us, and way cheaper than a trip to the Borscht Belt, they might add.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | September 02, 2009

A royal scam

TBTS' terrific Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Admit it — we are all a little perverse. How else to explain the difficulty, unless you are comatose, in not laughing heartily at Dirty Rotten Scoundrels , the tale of two con men plying their criminal trade on the French Riviera.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | August 25, 2009

Play by play: July 31, 2009

Plays from A to Z
Boston's weekly theater schedule
By JEFFREY GANTZ | July 29, 2009

Interview: Judd Apatow

On the making of his Citizen Kane
Behind every successful comedian, there's . . . a personal assistant. Who, given how egomaniacal and utterly misanthropic the funnyman in question is, is probably his best friend, too.
By LANCE GOULD | July 29, 2009

Play by play: July 24, 2009

Plays from A to Z
Boston's weekly theater schedule
By JEFFREY GANTZ | July 22, 2009

Play by play: July 17, 2009

Plays from A to Z
Boston's theater schedule
By JEFFREY GANTZ | July 15, 2009

Play by play: July 10, 2009

Plays from A to Z
This week in Boston theater
By JEFFREY GANTZ | July 08, 2009

Play by Play, May 8, 2009

Plays from A to Z
Theater around town
By JEFFREY GANTZ | May 07, 2009

The Earth moves

The Life of Galileo ; Spring Awakening ; Picasso at the Lapin Agile
There is an element of bare-bones pageantry in Brecht's play — which, the dramatist being a Marxist, has as much to say about knowledge and the marketplace as it does about the father of modern science's impassioned head butt to the opiate of the people.
By CAROLYN CLAY | April 28, 2009

Play by Play: May 1, 2009

Plays from A to Z
Theater around town
By CAROLYN CLAY | April 28, 2009

Play by Play: April 24, 2009

Plays from A to Z
Theater around town
By CAROLYN CLAY | April 22, 2009

Play by play: April 17, 2009

Plays from A to Z
Theater around town
By CAROLYN CLAY | April 14, 2009

Play by Play: April 10, 2009

Plays A to Z
Plays around town
By CAROLYN CLAY | April 08, 2009

Muddled musical

A mostly rotten Scoundrels
We sure do love our stage rascals.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | March 24, 2009

Interview: Louis CK

Boston's contribution to Conan, Letterman, and Chris Rock returns with a comedy special and a role in This Side of the Truth
"Boston is a great town to grow up in, but I really wanted to get out of there," says comedian Louis CK.
By MIKE MILIARD | March 12, 2009

Dramatic Success

Arts thrive at the Courthouse Center
The little black box theater that is West Kingston's Center Stage, with little room for scenery, has to be ingenious with its space.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | February 25, 2009